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Beating the Crap Out of Your Muse

For awhile, I was writing for hours everyday. And I don’t mean, organizing my e-mail inbox, twittering, getting distracted by my stumble button … I mean full-fledged pounding away at the keys, replacing my keyboard at the end of every day. All because somebody had the hare-brained idea of daring me, saying I couldn’t do my writing in mittens.

Not really. But I am known throughout google for my rabbit mittens, as told to me several times now by Google Analytics. So, that ones for you Rabbit Mitten people.

Anyways, I would write up a storm. And then, I would have a moment of self-refection here and there. Sitting in a big comfy arm chair, scribbling in my notebook. On the skytrain, sunlight shooting through the window, broken into fragments, shrapnel, warming me up. I would write in my notebook “I never write anymore.” Yet, I was writing 3 hours a day, 4 hours, maybe even 6 hours once or twice. That’s nothing to shake a lobster at, right?

But I was writing how-to articles. Blog posts. Lists of beauty tips. Greening your office newsletters. Random,
I tried nanowrimo which basically just made throw up inside my word processor.
I’ve read a lot of writing advice books, full of tips on what other writer’s did to put their muse in a chokehold until they said uncle.

Sit and write “I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write …” over and over until you do know.

But, I saw The Shining. We know how that ended, and I don’t what you’re into writing buddy, but that sick and twisted business just isn’t for me.

So far, the only thing I’ve found that works to inspire me in fiction is getting out there. Not necessarily outside, but doing something different, changing up my day to day, even just a little. It injects an energy into everything I do, most especially my fiction. I quit punching my muse in the face, mean mugging my computer screen, and froze her out. The muse hates to be ignored – they have egos the size of Manitoba. They like to be stroked and coddled like the precious and cute little kittens that they sure as Hell aren’t. Then they still don’t put out, those wiley vixens. They even prefer the outright beatings to being ignored. So, as soon as I stopped hassling my muse, indulging in other business, she came running.

What tips or ideas do you have that help you write your favorite kind of writing? What inspires you?